I don't know exactly how it was done but the chemical weapons recently removed from Syria were treated aboard a ship and disposed of at sea. One report I read was they they were diluted with sea water and dispersed but I'm neither a chemist or knowledgeable about chemical weapons.

It does not appear that the chemicals were weapons in that there were shells or bombs brought aboard, cracked up and treated but instead the chemicals in bulk. At least that is my interpretation of what was said.

The chemicals were treated on board and the treated wasted was kept on board to be further treated on land. No chemicals were dumped over board.

This is much different than dumping of chemical weapons into the ocean that had been done along time ago.

Johnson Island was used to build plant to handle chemical weapons. Once the weapons where destroyed, so was the plant. I read that some of the chemical weapons treated at Johnson were from the Solomon Islands which was a surprise. I guess the weapons were stock piled in the Solomons in case the Japanese used them in WWII. I would like to know how those weapons were stored.

So, please let nature do as it does. From my perspective, and biologically, its not any different than shitting in a bucket and feeding it to your plants.

Next you know they will try and say "put more plastic in the ocean - there are staving microbes that must be fed!"

This one's actually funny because I just read an article the other day discussing the decommissioned off-shore oil rigs. There has been an initiative for a while to remove them so that they don't just sit out there polluting the ocean as they decompose. So it basically went like this.

1) Local politician pushes for green initiative that forces companies to contribute to a fund that pays a third party to begin removing the decommissioned rigs.

2) Although industry opposes it, the legislation receives broad support from the voters because is sounds like the right thing to do.

3) After it passes, environmental movement starts to block the removal of rigs because it is discovered that the rigs have replaced now dead coralreefs as a suitable habitat for aquatic life.

4) The movement is now pushing for dismantling the rigs and piling the debris into the creation of an artificial reef.

If memory serves, the reefs had died as a result of unusually warm water temps or something. A once thriving and beautiful reef had become barren and dead, except for where there were decommissioned oil rigs. Those areas were thriving.

IMO, garbage is not a good thing. But these types of circumstances are fairly common.

Yep, up until the last few decades quite a bit of chemical and conventional munitions where dumped at sea and there are still missing Nukes off of Savannah GA, Johnson Island, Goldsboro NC, and a few places I can't remember.

I can't remember if the US dumped Nuke reactors at sea by the Russians certainly did.

It is interesting to see how many places in US coastal waters are not safe to anchor because of unexploded munitions.

"but I have heard from old timers off unbelievable stuff dumped off New jersey a long time ago...probably not since the 80's...."
Picture a huge steel barge with ginormous bomb bay doors in the bottom.

Yes, that's how metropolitan NY dumped trash at sea for many years. And why the Great Kills Landfill became necessary, and filled up, when sea dumping was ended.

But if you've ever seen Flushing Meadows aka the "World's Fair Grounds" that was all a great big ash heap for incinerated garbage for many years too. The scorched heaps in The Great Gatsby weren't just imaginary.